Xilandro had but one desire: to recreate Far Cry’s excellent bow and arrow experience in Fallout: New Vegas. Easier said than done.

“It took a year of planning, testing, random burnouts, trashing the idea and deleting all the WIP files, tons of rage,” Xilandro said. In total, the mod encapsulates 2,000 lines of code—and it’s not done yet. The end result seems worth it so far, though:

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“Some things are just not possible to replicate in [the New Vegas] engine,” Xylandro said. There are differences in terms of camera, the field of vision, how aiming works, animation transitions—and yet, despite all of that, Xilandro pulled through. This is one of the most detail-oriented mods I’ve ever seen:

The mod includes 20 different arrows, and they have their own categories and subtypes, meaning there are different models, textures, damage characteristics, and more. The bow itself can have different scopes, depending on the type you’re using.

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Once shot, arrows can be picked up, but there’s no guarantee that they’ll still be fully intact. Sometimes, you’ll find “pieces of aluminium and some feathers,” and you will need to craft them back together.

There’s a sillier side to the mod, too: if the arrows become embedded into a solid surface, the player can actually climb it and use it as a ladder. Nice

The Fallout: New Vegas B42 “Bow and arrow”is still a work in progress, so there’s no download link to share. For now, you can follow its progress on Xilandro’s YouTube page.